Member Info for HBLU

I’ve mentioned it before but the cold hard facts currently are that Foxtons cannot organically grow their recurring lettings revenue. They can only do this via acquisitions and even that has to be done out of London where rents are lower which will affect their profit margins and suck up cash. With Sales, this was already a loss making part of the business and now with the downturn, will lose more money. They are trying to mitigate by cutting costs such as downsizing their HQ. Market knows this and that the growth prospects are minimal without deploying cash to acquire in lower margin areas

After the pump comes the dump. Where are those that were lumping this yesterday saying £10-£20?

Careful all of buying into the ramp of the inevitable placing. Harry Houdini has form

Reports today of Rachel from accounts wanting to raid rental income with NI. Also I hear the pressure is mounting on Guy Gittins internally..

Stupmy - I think the issue is that their lettings recurring revenue is not growing organically. Up £2.6m v last year but £2.9m was from acquisitions. Dampening sales which is loss making for them so this is now essentially a business that has to buy to grow unfortunately

Oakley will be taking Dexters to the market this year. Foxtons also up for sale. Q1 results again showing no organic growth in lettings. Market will cotton on that Foxtons has to acquire to grow its recurring revenue lettings business. Not sustainable hence Guy Gittins trying to sell the business!

Anyone see this on their feed? Guy Gittins could be out if this gains legs as the report had it as Guy ignoring claims sent to him and not even investigating!

I've warned and warned people that they will do this and I was ridiculed by the pumpers. Doubt I will get an apology

Been saying it for a while, the Ukrainians will take the cashflows of this to rebuild the country. Corrupt as f...

It will but ultimately you want business performance / growth / efficiencies to be the driver of free cash generation and net debt reduction rather than a FX gain which is out of managements hands

Markets & analysts will assess it on a constant currency basis though. It all comes down to whether this serial disappointment can turn it around or not

The problem is that Foxton's recurring lettings revenue is in decline. They aren't growing organically and are reliant on acquisitions to get growth. That is a worry as competitors are grabbing market share in the local areas Foxtons operate in. To top it off, renters right bill will be in place next year which will shake up the lettings market and foxtons will struggle as they collect their fees currently upfront. Cash will be under heavy strain. The flip side is they are doing well on sales, however, the nature of that beast is it won't be valued as highly as its transactional in nature.

Facts are in the RNS. The quarterly update. Lettings revenue flat in Q3 24 v Q3 23. However, Q3 24 had the benefit of £1m of revenue from acquisitions. Therefore, organically, the lettings business has declined and they aren't winning market share in their organic markets. Ludlow was acquired in November 2023, and so will be in the comparison for Q4. If they hadn't done the acquisitions announced, fairly sure that Q4 would show declining lettings revenue

Bear case here is that their lettings division isn’t growing organically. Take out the effect of the ludlow acquisition and lettings is declining. Concerning as makes up 70% of revenues and is the recurring element that the market likes.

Makes you think management have no clue on what is happening within the business. Off its forecast so often.

Market will be looking at the growth aspects, with revenue down and expected to worsen, where is the growth coming from?

How many times can a company be so off its target and warn so much?

“we target like-for-like net revenue to be down on the prior year, but to a greater extent than that assumed in May 2024 in our last trading update.”

Crawshaw - think we both know who M1Rob is.

Material uncertainty on the comlany operating as a going concern. Yikes!

Looks like its the igas Andrew austin here rather than the rockrose one. Is he hiding some sort of issue here